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Schenkman Publishing Company (SPC) was founded in 1961 by Alfred Schenkman, and was originally located at One Story Street in Harvard Square in Cambridge, MA. The company’s early development benefited from a advisory board composed of 200 planning consultants, representing eight different academic disciplines from major universities and colleges both in the US and abroad. The company was able to thus analyze and anticipate the needs, issues, trends, and objectives of the academic community.

The sixties were good years for SPC, with an outpouring of innovative titles in Black studies and Women’s studies (years before these were categories in bookstores). SPC also pioneered third world titles in African, Caribbean, and Southeast Asian Studies, reflecting the radical US politics of that time. It became best known for its titles in Sociology and Social Welfare, becoming known as a “cause” publisher that championed social issues with “bulldog tenacity” in an industry that was dominated by conservative giants. “I think of you as David with his slingshot,” wrote one planning consultant in those early years, “arrayed against all those Goliaths.”

Since 1980, Joe Schenkman worked for his uncle until Alfred’s death in 1984, when Joe reorganized the company under the name of Schenkman Books, Inc. and relocated the company in Rochester, Vermont where he continues the fine tradition of academic publishing.

    
   

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